


forever isn’t for everyone but it might be for you

by tokyonightskies



Series: WidowReaper Week [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: 17th Century, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Comtesse!Widowmaker, F/M, Feeding, Fledglings, Murder, Plague, Plague Doctor!Reaper, Transformation, Vampire Bites, Vampire Turning, Vampires, WidowReaper Week, skins - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 09:00:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10760988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyonightskies/pseuds/tokyonightskies
Summary: Her voice’s hoarse from disuse, but the sickness hasn’t eaten away her mind and she speaks clearly, “Go away, monsieur… You cannot save me either.”“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Gabriel mutters lowly, pulling away from her and straightening his back. “What are you willing to do for your own sake?”Amélie laughs, but it’s a brittle, desperate sound that soon turns into a series of coughs. The column of her throat gleams with fever-sweat. “To stay alive?” She prompts, sounding out of breath. Her chest heaving in exertion. “Anything, of course.”“We’ll begin with the bloodletting.”





	forever isn’t for everyone but it might be for you

**Author's Note:**

> WidowReaper Week Day 6. Skins
> 
> a free for all, provided they include or reference the in-game skins.

_la première est vêtue de blanc. j'aurai son coeur_

_je ne veux qu'elle et si je mens. c'est qu'elle a mêlé les couleurs_

_dans le grand vent qui vente_

_\- le grand vent, laïs_

i.

“ _Ah, monsieur le médecin_. _Soyez le bienvenu.”_

It’s dark in the chateau, but the count’s study is awash with warmth; a log crackles pleasantly in the fireplace and the glow of the fire adds color to the pale herringbone floor. Comte Lacroix rises from his fauteuil to greet him, far less fearful of him than the elderly manservant who guided him through the chateau’s corridors.

His trip to Annecy was uneventful; his appearance – the waxed leather overcoat, the iron-tipped cane in his hand, the plague doctor’s mask – was enough to frighten highwaymen and bandits into leaving him alone, and the other travelers he met on the road were either defenseless pilgrims or refugees from plague-stricken cities. Gabriel doesn’t know why he made the journey in the first place. He could’ve easily abandoned the plague doctor’s corpse in the streets of Genève, but his curiosity got the better of him once more when he noticed that slip of parchment in the doctor’s pocket.

“I’ve sent for you because of my wife,” the count says, beckoning him closer. His footfalls are too loud a contrast with the study’s quiet as is the thud of his cane’s ironclad tip on the wooden floorboards.

The study’s walls are bare of art safe for one map frayed at the corners, depicting the county Savoy, framed in oak-wood, and the hearth’s mantelpiece is empty of silverworks and candelabras. Low-ranking nobility, he thinks, coming to stand behind the count’s fauteuil, away from the fire’s warmth, the flames discolored through the green-stained glass of the mask’s goggles. He’s not sure what the heat would mean for the wax on his overcoat and he’d rather not risk anything.  

Comte Lacroix sighs, leans his shoulder against the mantelpiece and explains, “She’s deadly ill, _monsieur._ I sincerely hope the trip to Annecy didn’t put too much strain on you. I… I fear for her life and would like for you to look after her immediately.”

Gabriel felt _responsible_ for the countess’ fate when he skimmed over the missive’s content. His only victim was supposed to be the plague doctor, whose husk of a corpse he would’ve left for the rats and the street mutts, but the discovery about the doctor’s patient complicated _things_. So, he robbed him of his mask, overcoat and cane, and disappeared from the city under the cover of darkness, _en route_ to Annecy.

“What would you give for my services, _monsieur le comte?_ ” His voice’s distorted from the respirator in the mask and when he inhales, he can taste on the tip of his tongue the rose petals, rosemary and camphor that he stuffed in the beak.

There’s a pallor to the count’s face that stems from one too many a sleepless night; he looks old with worry, wrinkles edged around his eyes and his mouth, an unkempt moustache above the cupid’s bow of his upper lip, a tremble to his hands, which he cleverly tries to hide by grabbing the iron-wrought poker and prodding the log. 

When the count stands upright again, loose-limbed and elegant, the frock of his coat accentuated by the glow of the fire, he looks him straight in the eye and confesses, “I would give anything to keep her alive, _monsieur le médecin._ ”

ii.

“Amélie, _ma chèrie_ ,” the count whispers into the darkness when he pushes the door to her bedroom open, voice muffled from the scented handkerchief he holds pressed against his nose. “Do you remember the doctor I told you about some time ago? I’ve sent for him _._ ”

Gabriel can hear her coughing feebly. He enters the bedchambers when the count gives him berth to pass and hears the door click shut behind him.

Even the herbs and flower petals in the beak of his mask can’t stifle the putrid combination of sweat, urine and illness, and he grimaces, stalking over to the grimy window, sparing the woman in the bed not more than a passing glance. First, he needs to get rid of these smells. His movements are underscored by the sound of his boots on the floorboards, by the thuds of his cane and her soft moaning, aside from this white noise, the room’s deadly silent. Fitting for the would-be dead.

He finds a couple of taper candles in a desk drawer, pins them onto the candelabra on the table next to the bed and lights them; the sudden strike of a match makes the countess keen and shift underneath the sheets.

Comtesse Lacroix – _Amélie_ – rolls over to face him, the sickly pallor of her skin and her white nightgown contrasting with her dark, mussed-up hair, sprawled across the pillows in strands wet from sweat.

“There you are,” Gabriel whispers gruffly, appraising her features under the candlelight, and thumbs her browbone gently. Some leather from his glove flakes loose and she groans lowly at the sensation, bringing her unfocused gaze upon his mask. She blinks sluggishly and suddenly her stare hardens. There’s a spark of defiance in her eyes. 

Her voice’s hoarse from disuse, but the sickness hasn’t eaten away her mind and she speaks clearly, “Go away, _monsieur_ … You cannot save me either.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Gabriel mutters lowly, pulling away from her and straightening his back. “What are you willing to do for your own sake?”

Amélie laughs, but it’s a brittle, desperate sound that soon turns into a series of coughs. The column of her throat gleams with fever-sweat. “To stay alive?” She prompts, sounding out of breath. Her chest heaving in exertion. “ _Anything_ , of course.”

“We’ll begin with the bloodletting.”

His shadow looks monstrous on the floor under the flicker of candlelight. Gabriel pushes down his hood, reaches for the clasps at the back of his head, pulling the thin strips of leather through their buckles, and peels the mask from his face.

Any words she might’ve said die stillborn on the tip of her tongue when he puts it down on the night table with a deafening _clank_.

Rose petals cover the tabletop like bloodstains.

It’s deadly silent in the bedroom once more when he settles down on the mattress, aside from her harsh breathing and the wooden bedframe squeaking lightly under his added weight, but in the candlelight, he sees her eyes quite clearly and there’s no fear to be found in her gaze. Gabriel doesn’t begrudge the respect for her that bubbles up in his ribcage; it’s been so long since he last saw a person worthy of it too.

Gabriel takes her hand in his and bows his head to press a kiss to her bone-white knuckles, another one to her open palm, slick with sweat, and another one to her dainty wrist.

A shaky gasp escapes her when he bites down, _sinks his teeth into her, breaks her skin_ , and drinks.

iii.

_It’s so cold_ , Amélie thinks, fisting the heavy covers. The taste of _his_ blood, _the plague doctor’s_ blood was neatly tucked away under her tongue, thick and cloying like honey, but with an ironclad tang that makes her retch and _choke_. His hands are hard-pressed against her bony shoulders, with the intent of holding her still despite her thrashing and shaking and every word he tells her in rushed, heated whispers is as good as meaningless to her, like pillow talk, like sweet nothings on a cold winter morning.

She can’t stop shaking. _It’s so cold._

_“Qu’est-ce que tu as fait?”_ Comtesse Lacroix – _Amélie_ – demands, but she doesn’t know how she managed to speak, doesn’t know whether she screamed or sobbed or just _breathed_ the question.

He holds her down against the mattress, against the pillows, his expression solemn, bordering on _resigned_ , as if he’s seen this before, _done this before_ ; the candlelight providing a reddish halo around his head on the backdrop. He says oh-so-softly, “I rebirthed you.”

iv.

After a while she stops thrashing, lies completely still as the cold burrows a home into her very bones, and aside from her teeth clattering, she doesn’t make a sound. Hunger stabs at her stomach, but it’s a foreign feeling, a novelty, because it’s too intense, and Amélie thinks she’s starving. She reaches for his face with trembling hands; her skin devoid of ulcers and sores. Every sharp line on his face, his jawline and cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, stands out with such startling clarity in the darkness that she can’t help but smooth them over with skittish fingertips, to make out for herself that it’s real, that _he_ ’s real.

“You need to feed.”

She nods frantically, delirium skirting at the edges of her mind, and throws the covers from her legs, sits up straight and looks around her bedroom, searching for something to eat. His gaze’s a tangible weight on her shoulders, but she ignores him – he has no smell, he has no pulse – and crawls to the other side of the bed, stands up, her feet colder than the floorboards, and she follows her nose. Her thoughts, her behavior, it’s animalistic, chthonic almost, like the plague doctor uprooted a side of her that was meant to remain dormant, _dead_.

There’s hunger and then there’s _this._

Amélie stumbles blindly into the hallway, her white nightgown skirting around her ankles as she moves, palms flat against the wall, searching.

Blindly finding her way to a door, then a groggy voice calling out, _her name_. Her teeth, her gums, they ache in her watering mouth. Sheets rustle when the man – and somewhere in the fog of hunger, she knows, deep down her belly, _she knows_ – sits upright and fumbles to strike one of the matches that he keeps on the night table next to his bed. Amélie makes her way to the bed on nimble feet, with a grace she shouldn’t have after being bedridden for so long, and pounces, drags them both tumbling to the floor with a loud _smack_.

His body heat, his smell, the thrum of his heart like birdwings against a cage, everything drives her insane, pinning the man beneath her and mouthing at his throat in the dark.

She’s barely aware of his feeble attempts to push her away, gnawing at his neck, trying to break the skin, but failing. Hunger and desperation claw at her insides in equal measure. Amélie bites down harder and harder, tearing at his throat like a rabid dog, until finally, something _squelches_ , gives out and she tugs at the loose strip of skin, clenched between her teeth, and then blood, slick on her lips, _warm and heady_ in her mouth, the inside of her cheek, on her tongue.

Soon enough the blood’s everywhere, slipping into the creases of the floorboards, drenching her white nightgown, and the man’s flailing stills the more tidbits of flesh and artery she wrests loose.

The plague doctor’s heavy footfalls and the thuds of his cane resonate through the silence. He makes his way to the nightstand, grabs the small wooden box of matches and strikes one across the tabletop. Amélie looks up at him, still straddling her dead husband, and watches transfixed how the light flicks across the birdmask’s beak in golden specks. Like a wolf’s maw after a fresh kill, her mouth and chin are covered in blood.

He puts his cane against the nightstand, leans in and smears the blood open over her jawline with his thumb.

“Better?” He asks, head cocked to the right, the green glass in his goggles sparking like the cathedral’s sunlit windows early morning. 

Amélie narrows her eyes and fists her hands into the fabric of her dead husband’s nightgown. Breath eludes her choked-up throat. “ _Non_ ,” she rasps shakily, screwing her eyes shut at the sight of Gérard. “ _Non, non, non… Mon Dieu, qu’est-ce qu’il passe? Qu’est-ce qu’il passe?_ ”

“If it’s any consolation…” the plague doctor begins quietly, shaking the flame off the match until there’s nothing but a wisp of smoke and dropping it down to the floor, unceremoniously so. Strikes another one. “He did say he’d give anything. And you... _Well_ , we both know what you said.”

She starts to shake. She _weeps._

v.

They leave the chateau around midnight; the cold doesn’t bother her but Amélie pulls the jacket of her husband’s military uniform close around her shoulders, a force of habit, and tucks her chin into the collar. The plague doctor – _Gabriel_ , he introduced himself and she guffawed a brittle-sounding laugh, _like the archangel_ – puts a hand on her lower back when she stands still and looks longingly over her shoulder, at her home.

“Time will make you stronger and _sharper_ , Comtesse,” he says firmly, reeling her in closer when she turns her head away. “You belong with me now.”

Amélie breathes in the chilly night air, breathes out _,_ “ _Sire…_ ”

And she knows deep down her belly, down to her guts and the marrow of her bones, that she _belongs_.

.


End file.
